2 Things You Can Start to Do Now to Improve the Affection in Your Marriage

“I Love You, I Love You, I Love You! Don’t You Know?”

“No, I don’t! How will I know? I don’t read minds!”

True Talk. Love is to be expressed.

You can’t claim to love your spouse if you don’t say or show it – in fact, you may even say it and they won’t believe because you don’t show it.

Here are two quick wins for you to show affection in your marriage.
This is a follow-up article on the article on Love, Affection and Desire.
In this post, I will be looking at Affection in Marriage.
We already gathered that Love and Affection are not the same things.
Love Is An Action Word, even the Bible describes it as such:

“Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails“(1 Corinthians 13:4-8a NIV).

Love is a decision to commit to someone, Affection takes it a step further. It involves making up your mind to love someone and expressing that love in a way to make the other person totally safe in your love. It is showing your love and devotion in ways to draw your heart closer to the heart of the other person.
You show affection when you sense the need of the other person and do whatever you can to meet that need. This statement is in two parts, and I believe these two parts are essential to creating that wonderful and secure atmosphere of love.
Sense The Need of Your Spouse: I guess this is where the major problem lies in a lot of marriage relationships – the ability of a spouse to sense a need. And I find it more common in our darling hubbies. I guess women are just generally more tuned to sense if there’s a problem somewhere. Most men don’t even notice when a woman is carrying a long face. I once wrote a piece on trying to communicate effectively with your husband, and in that piece I said:

” … In fact, men are not wired like women. A woman can look at a situation, and in two seconds, have a total picture of what is going on. Try putting a man in that situation, and you can spend the next thirty minutes trying to explain what just transpired. Their level of emotional intelligence is not as high as that of women. It’s not their fault, they just don’t know!”

It’s true, it’s just the way they are wired. But, It can be learned. It’s possible to train yourself to be more sensitive to the needs of others, and to be able to sense when someone has a need. The ability to sense the need of your spouse will go a long way in helping to show affection in the exact way it needs to be shown. After all, how can you meet a need you don’t even know exists?
Do What You Can To Meet That Need: The other part of showing affection is taking it a step further from sensing a need to meeting that need. What’s the point of sensing your spouse’s need if you won’t do what you can to meet that need? If you sense a need your spouse has, then you should also do whatever you can to meet that need. Sometimes, it’s in the little things, just knowing that someone cares is sometimes enough. Some problems may be things you can’t handle, but just showing that you care about the problem may be enough to make your spouse feel better.

“Two are better than one…”

If it’s a need you can meet, then do what you can to meet it. A Backrub, a listening ear… whatever you can do to meet the need of the ‘love of your life’, do it.

“Affection takes the loving relationship between a man and woman in marriage into the deeper realm of tender expressions that result in feelings of closeness, passion, and security. Affection takes work because it requires knowledge of what makes the other person tick.” – Marriage Missions

Much Love,
Oluseye Ashiru